No Excuses by Ridge King

Author:Ridge King [King, Ridge]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Elsinore Press
Published: 2020-11-08T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

The Other Kremlin

Derek Gilbertson worked his way past the hundreds of club-goers waiting in the long line snaking down Washington Avenue till he came to the front and edged his way into the VIP Line at the Kremlin Club. He caught the eye of a thick-bodied doorman who gently touched Wilma Kassman’s elbow. She turned, saw Derek and nodded to another doorman holding the velvet ropes. Derek slipped past and came up to Wilma, who was dressed in what looked like a thick black patent-leather one-piece bathing suit decorated with lots of stainless steel studs. She looked like she’d just graduated cum laude from Dominatrix School, complete with black fishnet stockings. Her long black hair and alabaster skin that had never seen the rays of sun on South Beach stood out against the provocative black outfit.

“C’mon, they’re waiting for you.”

“Great. Let’s go.”

Derek winked. She winked back and patted his cheek.

“You’re such a preppy little fuck.”

“What do you know about preppy?” he said as he followed her into the lobby of the biggest nightclub on South Beach.

“Maybe it was the ‘fuck’ part I was thinking about,” she said without looking over her shoulder at him.

Inside the Kremlin, the décor was big, flashy and bold, with lots of blood-red velvet walls. Spotlights highlighted huge reproductions of Fabergé eggs mounted on pedestals. Each was modeled after an original egg made for the Russian Imperial family, and plaques beneath each one used the original names: Rosebud, Caucasus, Renaissance, Diamond Trellis, Twelve Monograms, Coronation.

They moved up the curving stairway leading to the second floor lobby that led to the VIP Rooms up above. There, Wilma stopped at a bar and nodded. The bartender quickly chilled some Stoli over ice and poured it into a rocks glass.

“What’ll you have?”

“Rum and tonic with lime,” said Derek

“Martini glasses are such bullshit,” she said as she knocked back her drink. The bartender made her a second one. “It’s two in the morning. Time for me to start drinking.”

Derek sipped at his rum and tonic, hungrily eyeing the narrow stairway at the end of the VIP lobby.

“They up there?”

“All but Vlad. We have a couple of minutes.”

She walked over to the double doors propped wide open that gave onto a wide balcony overlooking the biggest dance floor on South Beach. They stood just above the DJ booth and observed the scene.

“So what do you need from Vlad and Jonah?”

“Some guys to follow some people for me?”

“What for?”

“Not sure.”

Wilma checked her phone. A text was coming through.

“Let’s go.”

She turned and he followed her to the narrow staircase, which they climbed to the top where they entered what once had been the projection booth of the old Art Deco cinema which the Kremlin Club had been back in the 1930s. Here, in what had been converted into the Owners’ Lounge, windows looked out (and down) onto the frenetic club scene unfolding below them. There was a cocoonish feeling to the small room. The pulsating bass from the speakers down below came into the room as a muffled throb that crept through the walls, giving the room an eerie feel.

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